Monthly Archives: September 2017

One aspect of jihad in general and the war in Syria in particular that is relatively little explored is the pain, worry and grief experienced by the families of those who go to fight or be part of the conflict in other ways (these are not always men, as this case shows). While I have been aware of this as a background issue , in the past weeks, I have been forced to think more about this, for various reasons, some of which I have published on this blog, others I have not (i.e. cannot). As I explained to someone earlier this week, when people write about jihadis, they miss the stories of mothers waiting at home, hoping that their sons are still alive, and unable to get news of them. Many if not most of these family members are not part of the jihadi world, but they have been forced to confront its harshest realities — i.e. the loss of their loved ones (which in the case of Syria also means the loss of the wives and children of the jihadis).

But this is an issue that is explored in Russian-language jihadi culture in various ways, including through poems and essays, sometimes written by the jihadis themselves but also by mothers, wives and family members left behind. These poems are a subset of women’s jihadi culture within the Russian-speaking jihadosphere*. This genre did not emerge with the Syrian conflict — there are poems dating back to the Chechen wars, for example. Some of the poems are original and others are plagiarized from existing works, but the authors change some of the words to include references to mujahideen.

I have collected quite a few poems of this genre, and I’ve posted a couple of them, with rough translations, below to give you a flavor of these. Many of the poems mix feelings of sadness and fear with “correct” expressions of how a mother or wife of a mujahid should think and feel (this is a constant conflict in other expressions of Russian-language jihadi culture on martyrdom/death in battle).

In an essay for the Nohchicho website on 13 September, Muslim Shishani has criticized Western imperialism through the ages and argues that the West has committed horrific and bloody atrocities in the name of liberating countries, including in Syria, though he does not talk about Syria directly. Muslim also criticizes Western capitalism and liberalism.